The Vanishing Point (28 page)

Her laughter drifted through the forest like a silver thread, drawing him toward her. He had a surprise for her—a pair of soft slippers made of doeskin instead of common pigskin. One night after she had gone to bed, he had secretly traced her shoe soles on the hide to take her measure. Proper shoe leather took six months to bark-tan, but these slippers would do until the shoes were ready. They were for indoors, being too light to wear in the mud and rain, but they would be perfect for dancing, supposing
she wished to dance at Christmas. He was too eager to wait for Christmas, or even until they were alone together in bed, to give her the present. He wanted to see her face in the daylight when he showed them to her.

It sounded as though she were singing. Her voice led him uphill, into the dense trees. This worried him. Hadn't he told her to stay near the creek and avoid the hills where his traps lay hidden? As long as he could hear her, he knew she was safe. But before he had walked another hundred paces, a cry stabbed the air. A yelp. He took off running, following the noise of her distress. Behind a stand of blood-red poison ivy, he came to a dead halt.

James was hurting her, pinning her against a beech tree while he hammered away. Hand on his knife, Gabriel was about to charge forward when he saw how her fingers clutched James's flame-bright hair as she moved her body in unison with his. She cried out in pleasure. So that was why she had stopped looking at James. Not because she had ceased wanting him, but to conceal the fact that they had become lovers. And if she coupled with him, her lawful husband, nearly every night, it was to cover her tracks. If she went with child, she would pass it off as his.

Gabriel backed away, his body gone cold. May was false, false. The promise of her had been so sweet, but she was like honey turned to snake venom on his tongue.
Poison,
he thought, remembering when his mother had been bitten in the neck by a copperhead in their own garden. Father tried to suck out the poison, but in vain. Poison had flooded her, made her face swell up until Gabriel could no longer recognize her. May was venomous as a snake and just as sly. He was tempted to drop the doeskin slippers in the creek as he crossed over again, but he held on to them. It had taken hours to tan the hide, cut the pieces, and stitch them together. He would not allow his labor to go to waste.

G
ABRIEL HAD GONE
to fetch the midwife and everything froze. To draw water from the creek, she had to break the ice with a hatchet. Frost etched patterns on the window while the red bird sang. Inside the house, she sweated and shook. When she sat down to sew, her water broke in a warm gush. Hands crossed over her belly, she prayed. Let it not begin, not now. The first pains gripped her.

It was so cold, she had taken Ruby inside with her. The puppy looked up at her with anxious eyes and drooping ears. Hannah clung to her. At first the contractions were far apart, giving her hope in between. She could pretend all was well, but then they returned with a force that sent her panting.

Did May see her now? Was May watching?
At least you had Adele. You did not have to do this alone.
Was this her punishment?

***

The room went dark. He had been gone a day. How could he find his way in the night, through the ice and snow? There was no moon. She dragged herself across the floor. Shivering, she struggled to kindle a fire. There were only a few more logs in the house. If he stayed away much longer, she would have to go outside, stagger through the snow to the woodshed. Strangely, she was hungry, and what she craved most was bloody fresh meat, the thing that had sickened her throughout her pregnancy. In the
pantry, she scooped salt pork from the barrel. The salt burned her tongue like sea brine. She was drowning. One of these waves would pull her under and she would never rise again. Cold, heat, hunger, salt, pain, fear, darkness blurred together. Ruby licked her hands as Hannah knelt on the floor and screamed.

***

Sweat dripped from her hair. She was so hot, it must be summer again. A strange face loomed over her. Strange hands pressed a compress to her forehead. The damp cloth smelled of witch hazel. The face peering down was luminously black, like a pool of molasses bathed in torchlight. A yelp ripped through Hannah's parched throat as waves of pain ran together in one pulsing angry tide.

The stranger spoke. "Aye, it hurt you like the devil. Shout and curse as loud as you like, my child."

She whimpered Gabriel's name, but he wasn't there. He had forsaken her and she would die, just as May had died.
You see, May, I got my comeuppance.

The stranger's face faded. May shimmered in the distance. Sitting beside a foaming hawthorn tree, she embroidered green cloth. Cool and serene, no sweat drenched her brow.
May, I am coming now, coming to join you, if I can just cross this big gray sea.
Hannah shrieked with her last strength. Finally her sister heard. Looking up from her embroidery frame, she called Hannah's name. Her eyes were wide with forgiveness.
Come to me, darling. Everything's all right.
The image split and shattered.

I won't join her on the other side. She went to heaven, but my sin will banish me to hell. I shall never be with her again, not in this world, nor in the next.

Hannah bore down and bellowed. The stranger's face hovered above hers. Please let this woman give her one word of kindness and hope. One scrap. May had never been this wretched. She'd had Adele.

"Push, or the pain never end.
Push.
" The woman seized her shoulders and pressed her up against the bed frame.

But she could never push hard enough. The torment just went on and on. Something stretched her so wide that she tore. The woman's big hands disappeared between Hannah's thighs. She kept shouting at her to push, push, push. Hannah cried as the woman pulled the misshapen thing out of her. It was covered in blood, in white and yellow muck. She closed her eyes and thought of the broken cradle filled with stained rags. A cold blue baby buried in the dirt.

"Now you have a son. Jesus have mercy on you both."

She opened her eyes to see the midwife cutting the cord. Hannah moved her arms toward the bloody wriggling mass. The woman pulled him up by his feet and slapped him until he wailed.

Hannah's eyes moved around the dark room. "Where is Gabriel? Where is my husband?" She had no right to call him that, but the word slipped from her before she could stop herself.

The woman muttered under her breath before turning to Hannah. "Why, of all men, you choose him?"

Silenced, Hannah could only shake her head.

"Once I meet your sister, May. Everyone love her but him. He break her spirit. Now they say he kill her."

Hearing those words from the woman who had pulled the baby from between her thighs was more devastating than any rumor voiced by Richard Banham. The midwife regarded her with such pity, as though she had been beguiled by the devil himself.

At that, the woman took the baby to the other side of the room where Hannah couldn't see him. She heard the sound of water splashing in a bowl.

"What are you doing? Bring me my baby. I want to hold my baby." It was hard to get the words out of her raw throat.

"You should give the child away," the midwife said, "to decent folk who fear the Lord." She washed the baby and put him somewhere out of Hannah's sight. Then the midwife returned to the bed, closed her fist around the cut cord still lying on Hannah's thigh, and pulled. "Now you push." She drew a bloody sac from
between her legs. Afterward she pressed a cup to Hannah's lips, a decoction of herbs that sent her falling into a muffled sleep.

***

She dreamt that someone was pushing a pillow over her face, holding it down until she couldn't breathe. Voices broke through the fog. The midwife, Gabriel, and another man were shouting, their words fuzzy and indistinct. Gabriel's rage left her in a cold terror.

She couldn't see anything beyond the curtains that enclosed the bed. Somewhere the baby cried feebly. She struggled to get up, but the fog clutched her, dragging her down. It must have been powerful physick the woman had given her. Soon she left her body behind and traveled through the air, weightless as a ghost. She tried to find her baby, but a powerful wind sucked her in its current, dragging her back across the ocean. She was in her father's house, except it had grown bigger in her absence, sprouting doors, rooms, corridors, staircases, entire wings that had never been there before. It was night. A draft blew out her candle as she wandered, wondering if she would ever find her way back to the daylight world.

***

"Hannah."

Sun shone on her face. Someone had drawn back the bed curtains. Someone stroked her unwashed hair. Her eyes focused on Gabriel's drawn face, his red-rimmed eyes. When he kissed her dry lips, a tremor went through her. She remembered the shouting—or had she only dreamt that?

She wanted to ask him where the baby was, but her lips were too numb to form words. Her throat was too dry. Gathering her strength, she lifted her head from the pillow, but Gabriel pushed her back down.

"You must rest."

She wet her lips with her swollen tongue. "The baby."

"The baby is fine," he said. "We have a fine son."

He raised a cup to her lips. She shook her head, but he wouldn't take it away.

"Hannah, you must drink."

He tipped it into her mouth. To her relief, it was pure water, no more of the herbal brew that had turned her into a wandering ghost. She drank it down.

"Bring him to me," she said hoarsely.

"You're too weak. Just rest. Don't you worry about the baby. You must sleep."

"
Bring
him to me." Then she stopped short. "Or did they take him away?"

Gabriel blanched. "No one can take him away, Hannah. He's ours."

Cold tears blurred her eyes. "She said they would take him away and give him to decent people."

"She
said
that to you? What kind of fiend would torment you like that when you were so helpless?" He tried to stroke her hair, but she shrank from his touch.

"The baby," she said. "I want my baby."

He got up and crossed the room. She noticed that she lay on rough sacking cloth. Someone had laid sacking beneath her to spare the feather mattress. Shuddering from the pain, she forced herself into a sitting position. Now she could see the cradle by the hearth. How could he leave the wooden cradle so close to the flames?

"Bring him to me," she snapped.

"Here he is." Gabriel showed her the blanket-wrapped bundle with the tiny pink face. Hannah tried to take him, but he pulled the baby out of her reach just as the midwife had done. "Lie back against the pillow," he said, "and I will give him to you."

At last she held him and could gaze into his unfocused eyes. His nose was so delicate, like a little shell. She reached into the swaddling and pulled out his hand, counting his fingers. She kissed his downy head. His skull wasn't misshapen at all, as she had first thought. He was clean and rosy, no blood on him. She cradled him so she could feel his warm snuffling breath on her neck.

"We are a family." Gabriel tried to kiss her, but she twisted her head so that his lips grazed her ear.

Why, of all men, you choose him?
The midwife's voice would not leave her head. If he hadn't killed May, had he broken her? In how many different ways might he have broken her?

"A healthy son and a safe birth." He tried to take her hand, but she snatched it away. "Are you not happy, Hannah?"

She couldn't bear to look at him, only at the baby. She tried to drown herself in those blue eyes that knew nothing of harm or betrayal.

Gabriel sighed. "You are tired."

He returned a while later with a bowl of broth, which she drank down obediently. She needed her strength; if she did not survive, the baby would die, too. Gabriel's eyes never left her face, but she refused to look at him. The only way she could live with her terror and her betrayal of May was by pouring her entire attention on the baby.

"You're white as a ghost, Hannah. That snake-tongued harpy must have frightened you. What else did she say?" When she didn't answer, he let out his breath. "Mayhap you are angry that I left you alone. I brought them back with me with as much speed as I could, but the river was frozen. I went down on foot, and we came back on horseback. But all is well now. You and the baby are well."

When the broth was finished, she sank into the bedclothes with her son. Stroking his face, she decided to name him Daniel, after Father.

"They are gone now," said Gabriel. "I hope we never have to see them again."

The baby snuffled against her chest. Turning her back to Gabriel, she opened her shift and drew the baby to her breast.

"The harpy said three days would pass before the first milk came."

Hannah ignored him. What did he know of such things? He hadn't been able to keep May and her baby alive. It took some time. She had seen women nursing babies on the ship. They had made it look so easy. But what if he didn't latch on to her? Finally the baby began to suckle, drawing a clear fluid from her breast. His greedy sucking allowed her to hope. He would be strong. She wouldn't lose him after a week. If she was a ruined girl who had betrayed her sister, then at least she had done one good thing. At least she had given life to Daniel. Closing her eyes, she curled her body around his.

"Leave us," she told Gabriel.

He stepped away and closed the curtains. Then she was alone in a warm cocoon with her baby.

She was no longer the old Hannah but a mother animal whose torn body leaked milk and blood. In bed with the curtains drawn against the cold, she lived in twilight. Day and night were all the same to her. She dozed a few hours, only to awaken to Daniel's cry, his tug on her body. His flesh was her flesh. When she held him, she lost track of where her skin ended and his began. When she counted his fingers and toes, she marveled that he had once fitted inside her body and now lived as a separate being. He was a part of her and yet he was his own. She loved him with a ferocity that made her ache. Sleeping with him in her arms, she couldn't bear the thought of anyone taking him away from her again.